a poet's notebook

05 May 2006

Social Cats

You would be mistaken to think that only humans engage in online social networking. Cats, contrary to common wisdom, are very social animals:

Are cats really as
unsociable as we think? Studies over the last thirty years suggest that
cats develop complex and fluid matriarchal hierarchies and that they
have preferred buddies

For years,
'experts' have told cat owners that domestic cats are solitary
creatures who dislike the company of other cats. No doubt cat owners
have viewed the communal sleep heap on the armchair with puzzlement,
wondering whether it is the cats or the experts who have their facts
wrong . . .

Only in the last few decades have
domestic cats been recognised as social animals (at least by
scientists). Previously they were seen as little more than
multicoloured, tame versions of their solitary African wildcat
ancestors. While the ancestors of our domestic cats may have been
solitary hunters in the forests of Europe and Africa, domestic cats
frequently live in harmonious groups; playing, sleeping and even
hunting together. Many form close attachments to other cats and even to
other domestic animals.

. . . the anti-social cat is a myth; cats form close bonds with humans and
with each other. In the potentially chaotic environment of a shelter
that houses dozens of uncaged cats, they reveal a sense of self and
build a culture—a shared set of rules, roles, and expectations that
organizes their world and assimilates newcomers.

Boo and Spike both have joined Attack of the Tabbies, a blog for Tabbies and Torbies who have decided that being big and
wild is not preferable to having a warm bed and being lovable. Spike is certainly fierce enough to fit into this group, but Boo is more on the loveable side: